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...I'd be willing to accept what you say if you could point out where is the many cites you link to where one single person claims to have serviced up to 110 clients in one day, that's one every 13 minutes over 24 hours. Just one single person.

I too am loath to accept statistics from the a21 campaign at face value: not just because of the one stat posted here but because of other research and readings I have done. But that statistic is the most obviously overstated one: why should I believe anything else they say?

The claim you ask to be proven was never made.

The article said that women in forced sexual slavery in Greece could be forced to service up to 40 to 100 men a day. It didn't say say 'one man at a time 13 minutes apart non-stop for 24 hours every day'.

The obvious explanation for those extremely high numbers has been provided.
New prostitutes, particularly children, can in fact be gang raped by multiple men at the same time, over and over for hours on end. In some places, death is only a matter of time, and replacements are cheap. That is how horrible it can be at one extreme
Information that governments have compiled from law enforcement and activist organizations shows that dozens of clients, and 14 to 15 hour shifts are more the average in many forced trafficking situatons.

That may offend delicate sensibilities, but denying that the problem can get that bad, helps nothing.

Not everyone who is a prostitute sits in a penthouse waiting for gentlemen callers to bring them presents. The opposite extreme is as bad as it gets, and the middle isn't that great either.

Not after all the facts I've posted on the reality of forced sex trafficking it isn't.

The ridiculous assertion was made that everything in that website on forced trafficking, and by extension all the other links to facts and figures were 'likely made up' because someone couldn't grasp the extremes to which the absolute worst forced sex slavery can go.

That assertion was debunked, and no evidence was even offered to support it... merely head in the sand 'I can't believe that could happen' denial, even after the math was spelled out for them.

If you want to hop on the denier bandwagon, have fun with it over in CT.

There are more women who are at risk of being harmed by their law enforcement spouses/boyfriends than there are prostitutes who are forced into prostitution. I know this because I have been a sex worker rights activist for 30 years and know far more sex workers around the world than ANY of the ideologically biased academics and other abolitionists whom you quote.

That said, sex workers are aware that there are victims of both child sexual exploitation AND adults who are forced into prostitution. And we want to end all coerced prostitution as much or more than you. Who better to know who the abusers are than us? Who better to work with law enforcement than someone who knows the inside story? But we can't because we are criminals... or voiceless victims who are not allowed to speak for ourselves.

We also know that the majority of cases of child sexual abuse (90% according to the US Government) are someone whom the child knows and trusts, like preachers, teachers, priests, coaches, boy scout leaders and law enforcement agents. And 68% of the sexual predators of children are family members. Where is the crusade to abolish the Explorer Program (where many a cop finds his victims) or the after school sports programs for young children? Or to keep children away from pedophile priests/ teachers/ cops/ boy scout leaders and those many other predators who do not 'pay' for the services of their victims?

There are millions of women who are victims of abusive husbands and boyfriends (and vice versa)- but that hardly indicates that all or even most intimate partner relationships are dangerous and abusive.

All victims are in a much better position if they are able to file a complaint against the perpetrators of violence against them. Think of the way life was for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders before homosexuality was decriminalized- when glbts were attacked and could not go to the police to report it because they might get arrested or harassed by the cops.

Did the abuse of gays end when they were no longer criminals? Of course not, but inasmuch as they could now report the abuse to the police, they are in a much better place than before when they were 'breaking the law.' There are a number of published studies conducted by such 'scientific' groups like Family Research Center which claim that the majority of gays are unhappy being gay and that the mere fact that they are gay causes emotional harm.

Same goes for abortion- lots of studies conducted by religious research groups which claim absolutely that ALL abortion causes post abortion stress disorder (same as PTSD) regardless of whether or not the woman KNOWS she is being harmed. Just do a search for the 'harm of abortion" or the emotional harm of being homosexual. Are some women traumatized by having an abortion? Certainly, but that's not a good reason to ban abortions. There are some homosexuals who are so ashamed of being gay that they act out against others who flaunt their gayness. And of course we know that some very young gays are bullied and this pushes them to commit suicide. So because some gays are bullied and hate their sexual preferences, ought we to recriminalize homosexuality to protect young people from being bullied into committing suicide?

Religious conservatives are convinced that all or most gays are pedophiles- or at least most of them... and that it is only because adult men rape male children that those children then grow up to be gay too. But is this true? I hardly think so, no matter how many 'studies' the Family Research Center does which claim it is true.

The so called research to which your links refer and conducted by the radical feminists and religious conservatives falls into the same category as the obviously biased research put forth by people like George Rekers, and if you are willing to accept and quote tainted 'facts' postulated by these seriously bigoted individuals who skew their studies to get the 'facts' they want, you clearly don't have the best interest of prostitutes at heart. You are only pushing a twisted agenda which causes more harm to the people you claim are victims. Please do search for sex worker rights groups on the internet. We are out here. We have much to say about our lives, our issues and our exclusion from the criminal justice system which simultaneously brands us as criminals and claims we are victims.

The police have an unofficial term for murdered prostitutes- they call them NHIs- "No Humans Involved." The police rape and extort us because the laws give them the power to do so. The police rape and murder other women as well (lots of cops kill their wives and then eat their guns), and within law enforcement communities, the rate of intimate partner violence is about 40%, compared to 10% in the general population. There are about 900,000 law enforcement agents nationwide, which means that at any given time, there are 360,000 wives/ lovers/ partners who are being brutally victimized by their law enforcement spouses/ lovers/partners... people who carry guns and have the power of life and death over their families. And you want to put the lives of people you consider to be victims in the hands of these violent men who can't keep their hands off non prostitute women?
Sources for all the above stats can be found on the website policeprostitutionandpolitics.com I'd put in the links to the sources but as I am new to this forum, I haven't yet posted a sufficient number to be allowed to include urls.

Well, as well meaning as the above statement was, it was full of a lot of hyperbole and accusations. Not to mention a generalizing of police officers as rapists and murderers.

Frankly,it sounded like crazed ranting.

This is a complex issue, and I'm not 100 convinced that the women who end up in the sex trade aren't dealing with serious emotional trauma due to terrible life events in some form or another. I just can't see how someone would want to do that for a living, regardless of how much $$$ they make.

Well, as well meaning as the above statement was, it was full of a lot of hyperbole and accusations. Not to mention a generalizing of police officers as rapists and murderers.

NoormaJeanA has first-hand experience. She has compiled real statistics —— as opposed to the phony 1s a certain someone claiming to study crime pulled from HumanTrafficking.Org. She never claims that all police are rapists and murderers, but she cites cases of bad cops being rapists and murderers. I ask you this:

¿Why can bad cops get away with rape and murder of sexworkers?

Because cops are above the law, while courtesans are beneath the law.

The majority of the cases she cites are incidents where the pigs messed up, such that their wrongdoing became publicly known and ended up in the newspapers. Yes, she cites newspapers.

Police-murders of courtesans are luckily rare, but extortion of sex (rape) and bribes are very common.

Decriminalization would really help here, because sexworkers would no longer be beneath the law.

Originally Posted by LogicFail

Frankly,it sounded like crazed ranting.

No, she cites her sources. What is really scary is the thought that what she cites are only the 1s making the papers. A bad cop can extort weekly freebies and bribes for decades.

This is a complex issue, and I'm not 100 convinced that the women who end up in the sex trade aren't dealing with serious emotional trauma due to terrible life events in some form or another. I just can't see how someone would want to do that for a living, regardless of how much $$$ they make.

Some have emotional trauma while others do not.

Your argument that women would not want to have sex for money is the logical fallacy of argument from personal incredulity. The fact is that most homely inarticulate men who cannot get dates are nice. If a woman can tolerate the ugliness and stuttering, she can make a great living for basically light labor. Let me give an example:

On DiscoverChannel is a show called Dirty Jobs. Sexwork is cleaner than all of those jobs. It is easier and pays better than 90% of those jobs. If we can find men willing to take the dirty jobs Mike Rowe does, than surely we can find women willing to do sexwork which is cleaner than all of those jobs and pays better and is easier than 90% of those jobs.

Well, as well meaning as the above statement was, it was full of a lot of hyperbole and accusations. Not to mention a generalizing of police officers as rapists and murderers.

Frankly,it sounded like crazed ranting.

Pffft. More like a breath of fresh air upon the stagnant feminist swamp gas of Rescue Industry propaganda.

No need to exaggerate what she said about police officers. What specifically did you disagree with that she actually stated?

Quote:

This is a complex issue, and I'm not 100 convinced that the women who end up in the sex trade aren't dealing with serious emotional trauma due to terrible life events in some form or another. I just can't see how someone would want to do that for a living, regardless of how much $$$ they make.

Oh rubbish. See how we dehumanize sex workers? They have no capacity to choose because they are "traumatized". Take their rights to choose while pretending to be protecting them.

You don't actually care enough about any of them to even bother looking into it. Isn't that what you would do if professing sincerely to be rescuing them? This need to be 100 % certain... pfft. It is 100% certain you will not spend a whit of energy verifying that raw speculation.

It's just an argument you make up to feel better about negating someone else's rights.

to help NormaJeanA, I posted her citation for her. She is a breath of fresh air.

Originally Posted by AlaskaBushPilot

Pffft. More like a breath of fresh air upon the stagnant feminist swamp gas of Rescue Industry propaganda.

No need to exaggerate what she said about police officers. What specifically did you disagree with that she actually stated?

She even tried to cite her references, but being new, she could not post external links. In my reply to LogicFail, I posted her citation-link. I would repost the link here, but posting the same link over-and-over-and-over-again could get me blocked as a link-spammer, so you will have to find the link I posted for NormaJeanA above.

Originally Posted by AlaskaBushPilot

Oh rubbish. See how we dehumanize sex workers? They have no capacity to choose because they are "traumatized". Take their rights to choose while pretending to be protecting them.

You don't actually care enough about any of them to even bother looking into it. Isn't that what you would do if professing sincerely to be rescuing them? This need to be 100 % certain... pfft. It is 100% certain you will not spend a whit of energy verifying that raw speculation.

It's just an argument you make up to feel better about negating someone else's rights.

I just can't see how someone would want to do that for a living, regardless of how much $$$ they make.

Think a second time. If the pay is good enough, compared to other professions (or unemployment) that the woman can get with her level of education, of course she takes the job if she has nothing against liberal sex. Most women have something against it, but not all.

Disclaimer: In many cases the pay is very poor. The statement above is not meant as a generalisation of the overall reality in the business.

...your inability to show that someone has the capacity to service up to 110 clients in one day, that's one every 13 minutes over 24 hours.

The ball is really in your court.

You have to think in a really icky fashion to establish that those numbers are viable.

But they can be. Do bear in mind that one person can 'service' many people at once. They do not, in fact need to be entirely conscious for the duration either.

You are thinking like a human being and not a trafficer. To them the forced labourer is simply a machine to be made money from. Take away all human compassion, reasonableness and consideration for others and those numbers are viable.

Horrible to contemplate, I know, but I'm afraid they are feasible.

__________________Some seem to think the UK leaving the EU is like Robbie leaving Take That.
In reality it's more like Pete leaving The Beatles.

Well, as well meaning as the above statement was, it was full of a lot of hyperbole and accusations. Not to mention a generalizing of police officers as rapists and murderers.

Frankly,it sounded like crazed ranting.

This is a complex issue, and I'm not 100 convinced that the women who end up in the sex trade aren't dealing with serious emotional trauma due to terrible life events in some form or another. I just can't see how someone would want to do that for a living, regardless of how much $$$ they make.

I can't see how someone would want to be a milkman (I hate getting up early) or work in a sewer or work underground. Just because a job is not one I would want to do, it doesn't mean there's no-one who would want to do it.

__________________Some seem to think the UK leaving the EU is like Robbie leaving Take That.
In reality it's more like Pete leaving The Beatles.

You have to think in a really icky fashion to establish that those numbers are viable.

But they can be. Do bear in mind that one person can 'service' many people at once. They do not, in fact need to be entirely conscious for the duration either.

You are thinking like a human being and not a trafficer. To them the forced labourer is simply a machine to be made money from. Take away all human compassion, reasonableness and consideration for others and those numbers are viable.

Horrible to contemplate, I know, but I'm afraid they are feasible.

Yes - but the claim on the webpage was that women could be forced to service between 40 and 110 men per day.

That really makes it out to be common numbers.

Otherwise, why would 40 be the lower bound? Do the trafficers end up paying customers if they canot make theirt daily quota otherwise? Is it not "force" if it's only 35 men per day?

If you read somewhere that a restaurant had 40 to 110 customers a day, would you not simply assume that that's the range of customers in a typical day, but that there might be slow days with just 35 or 20 customers, and incredibly busy days with 150 or 170 customers, and then some they had to turn away at the door?

And even just the 40 men: That's one every half hour. Less, if you assume the prostitute is not on duty 24/7. (Which, if forced, she might well be.) I really have no idea how it works, but from what little i have read about legal prostitution, the women sell per hour or half hour.

An illegal prostitute would have to be in incredibly high demandb in order to serve that many customers. And there's competition, too, from other illegal prostitutes, never mind the legal ones. There should be busloads of customers and long lines somewhere, if this was making any sense whatsoever in the way the claimns are presented.

__________________"Well, the religious community could not just make it up." - JetLeg

Yes - but the claim on the webpage was that women could be forced to service between 40 and 110 men per day.

That really makes it out to be common numbers.

Otherwise, why would 40 be the lower bound? Do the trafficers end up paying customers if they canot make theirt daily quota otherwise? Is it not "force" if it's only 35 men per day?

If you read somewhere that a restaurant had 40 to 110 customers a day, would you not simply assume that that's the range of customers in a typical day, but that there might be slow days with just 35 or 20 customers, and incredibly busy days with 150 or 170 customers, and then some they had to turn away at the door?

And even just the 40 men: That's one every half hour. Less, if you assume the prostitute is not on duty 24/7. (Which, if forced, she might well be.) I really have no idea how it works, but from what little i have read about legal prostitution, the women sell per hour or half hour.

An illegal prostitute would have to be in incredibly high demandb in order to serve that many customers. And there's competition, too, from other illegal prostitutes, never mind the legal ones. There should be busloads of customers and long lines somewhere, if this was making any sense whatsoever in the way the claimns are presented.

Low, low prices = very high demand.

I'm not saying that the numbers are accurate, I haven't read the report, but I can tell you that they are feasible. It just requires the slaver to treat people as machines.

__________________Some seem to think the UK leaving the EU is like Robbie leaving Take That.
In reality it's more like Pete leaving The Beatles.

I'm not saying that the numbers are accurate, I haven't read the report, but I can tell you that they are feasible. It just requires the slaver to treat people as machines.

No, it does not require "just" that.

Getting 110 men to be served by just one slave means you have to work out your logisitcs and you actually have to find those men in the first place:

110 men who don't mind gang-raping a sex-slave.

And getting all that organized has to be more economical than selling the same slave out to 20 or 30 men a day, one after the other, for anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes each for just slightly more money.

Yes, I am sure there is the odd orgy of drug cartell owners who simply buy women to throw at their guests - but that's not what the claim actually is about, is it?

__________________"Well, the religious community could not just make it up." - JetLeg

Getting 110 men to be served by just one slave means you have to work out your logisitcs and you actually have to find those men in the first place:

110 men who don't mind gang-raping a sex-slave.

And getting all that organized has to be more economical than selling the same slave out to 20 or 30 men a day, one after the other, for anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes each for just slightly more money.

Yes, I am sure there is the odd orgy of drug cartell owners who simply buy women to throw at their guests - but that's not what the claim actually is about, is it?

Hey, I'm just telling you that those numbers are possible.

Whether or not they're accurate I couldn't say. I don't have the knowledge.

The document was debunked using flawed mathematics and I thought that should be pointed out.

Does it happen? - I don't know.

Is it feasible/possible? - Absolutely yes.

If you want to debunk the numbers, you can't do it with maths is all I'm saying.

__________________Some seem to think the UK leaving the EU is like Robbie leaving Take That.
In reality it's more like Pete leaving The Beatles.

Unless you've ever been a sex worker, you don't get to speak for us and post alleged facts that are published by ideologically biased academics and others who are on a crusade to abolish all prostitution, consenting or not. And even if you were a sex worker and it was not the right job for you, you still have to right to silence the millions of other voices of sex workers for whom this job is perhaps the best choice for us among few or many choices. If you were to visit a battered women's shelter, you would not find many women who championed marriage... but that doesn't mean there aren't far more happily married women out here who find marriage to be just fine.

My late sister in law used to have a hairdressing salon near the red light district in Antwerp. Many of the girls used to be her customers. I used to help out in there on a Saturday. They were all happy in their jobs, and none of them were forced to do it. The girls even have a union, Payoke.

This photo is of a job centre with a sense of humour in the red light district.

I recently listened to an interview with a "sex worker" of sorts who had put herself through college working in a BDSM "Dungeon" in New York. She was a dominatrix working for what amounted to a corporate operation.
No sex. No sexual activity whatever on the premisis other than the bondage, role-play, and "costume" play that well-heeled clients paid (rather a lot) for.

Certainly several cuts above being a "street hooker", but still sex work.

Seems to me both things go on in parallel. Certainly there is sex slavery, trafficking, abuse, drug addiction, and all the horrors that go on with street-level prostitution.
At the same time, there is also the upper end of the trade with "high-class call girls", "escort" services, and even (as mentioned in The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl) "concubines" who essentially function as live-in prostitutes who are paid to provide a much classier form of entertainment for wealthy men.
Essentially, professional mistresses.
Are such women being exploited?

For people who are going on about the article I managed to get my hands on a copy of it.

In case you forgot the article is Lazaridis, G., 2001, 'Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women in Greece', European Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 8, Is. 67. (as cited by crimresearch back on page 2). If you have access to Sage Journals you can find the article online here.

The 40-110 people point is made on page 84 of the article (19 on the pdf) I've also included the sentences immediately before and after the relevant section:

Originally Posted by Lazaridis, G. 2001, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women in Greece", European Journal of Women's Studies Vol. 8:67, p. 84

The length of time they work in a brothel is around six hours per day. They work in shifts and the number of clients they serve per day fluctuates between 40 and 110 (interview with Greek police). There are a couple of brothels run by homosexual men.

Now I would say that this is talking about a total number of customers for the brothel and not a total number of customers per person. Unless we are supposed to assume that these women are engaging in multiple partners for the entire time they are working, an assumption that is not made, let alone touched upon, by the article.

I also would like to state that the sentences preceding the quoted bit are about the geographic distribution of prostitutes by ethnicity/country of origin in Athens, so I'd say that a conservative interpretation of those numbers would only extend to Athens.

__________________

Last edited by Wildy; 24th April 2012 at 07:04 AM.
Reason: can't italicise the journal name within the quote tags

I recently listened to an interview with a "sex worker" of sorts who had put herself through college working in a BDSM "Dungeon" in New York. She was a dominatrix working for what amounted to a corporate operation.
No sex. No sexual activity whatever on the premisis other than the bondage, role-play, and "costume" play that well-heeled clients paid (rather a lot) for.

Certainly several cuts above being a "street hooker", but still sex work.

Seems to me both things go on in parallel. Certainly there is sex slavery, trafficking, abuse, drug addiction, and all the horrors that go on with street-level prostitution.
At the same time, there is also the upper end of the trade with "high-class call girls", "escort" services, and even (as mentioned in The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl) "concubines" who essentially function as live-in prostitutes who are paid to provide a much classier form of entertainment for wealthy men.
Essentially, professional mistresses.
Are such women being exploited?

The sequel to Freakanomics, Super Freakanomics goes into the economics of prostitution.

Both extremes are explored.
Street prostitutes have to have a lot of sex with a lot of customers. they are frequently confronted with violence and abuse.
The high end call girl essentially plays perfect wife or mistress, gets taken to dinner, showed off at a party and concludes the night with half an hour of sex. And gets $ 2000 for the night.

Life isn't fair. But if you're a street prostitute, you already knew that.

Another thing that stuck out from their research:
When they asked street prostitutes if they had a pimp, the answer was quite often 'no, I'm still looking. Can you put me in touch with one?'

For people who are going on about the article I managed to get my hands on a copy of it.

In case you forgot the article is Lazaridis, G., 2001, 'Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women in Greece', European Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 8, Is. 67. (as cited by crimresearch back on page 2). If you have access to Sage Journals you can find the article online here.

The 40-110 people point is made on page 84 of the article (19 on the pdf) I've also included the sentences immediately before and after the relevant section:

Now I would say that this is talking about a total number of customers for the brothel and not a total number of customers per person. Unless we are supposed to assume that these women are engaging in multiple partners for the entire time they are working, an assumption that is not made, let alone touched upon, by the article.

I also would like to state that the sentences preceding the quoted bit are about the geographic distribution of prostitutes by ethnicity/country of origin in Athens, so I'd say that a conservative interpretation of those numbers would only extend to Athens.

Thanks for finding that.

It puts A21's error in a clear perspective, namely imprecise paraphrasing of real numbers, instead of the total fabrication that some have claimed.

Some bloggers here think that my comments about bad cops are merely ranting, but unfortunately everything I stated is based on real cases not hypothetical hyperbole. As I stated, I cannot yet post links, but if you go to the website policeprostitutionandpolitics.com and click the links for the police abuse of prostitutes, abuse of their (cop) family members and the sexual exploitation of children. The lists are of actual cases, not speculation.

And if you go to this page, you will find plenty of academic studies and other material which counter the claims of the radical feminists: policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/pdfs_all/

As a former civilian employee of the LAPD (30 years ago), this is an area which greatly concerns me which is why I have spent the past 30 years gathering the horrendous stories of police abuse. The corruption drove me to leave the department, and I became a prostitute as a social statement about societal hypocrisy and apathy. I went to prison for daring to expose the corruption that was occurring back in the 1970s - 1980s. You can see the interview with Ed Bradley by going to policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/videos

The point I always make is that while there are far too many cops who do these things, the bad cops do not represent the entire law enforcement community, not even most of that community. And the victims of sex trafficking do not represent the entire sex worker community.

When compared to other similar situations in which abuse, psychological harm and coercion occur, it is much clearer that sex work is not the only source of harm to 'women and children.' But we do not make criminals of the victims in any other area but prostitution.

According to many sources (again find the links on the website above) the major destination for victims of human trafficking is not into sex slavery but into domestic servitude. Children as young as 5 are sold to families to be their servant. However, unless the child is also used for sex, when the child is rescued, there is no great outcry about the harm of domestic servitude. Even after the (alleged) rape of a maid at a high end hotel by a French politician, there is no crusade to abolish what appears to be a very dangerous occupation.

Given that there is every bit as much 'evidence' that abortion is as psychologically harmful as sex work is said to be, it seems to me that feminists would get on board with the religious conservatives to make abortion a crime once again. Same for homosexuality. And no, I am not being serious. It is MY body and it is MY choice regardless of what I choose to do with it... but why aren't feminists consistent? If religious researchers have found that abortion and homosexuality are harmful, why do the feminists ignore the studies which are so obviously ideologically biased while embracing their own equally ideologically biased research?

Instead of blathering on about whether it is 'common' for a few or many or most prostitutes to be forced to have sex with 100 men in one day (it is NOT), I would hope that all you people who seem to have so much time on your hands that you can stay up all night and blog about the lives of people you don't even know- would get involved in helping sex workers change the laws so that when we are victims of either an abusive pimp (which most of us do not have) or a violent client or extortionist cop, we have some recourse to fight back.

But of course, why listen to someone who knows first hand about this issue when you can listen to people who just read about it and speculate on the reality of our lives?

Think a second time. If the pay is good enough, compared to other professions (or unemployment) that the woman can get with her level of education, of course she takes the job if she has nothing against liberal sex. Most women have something against it, but not all.

Disclaimer: In many cases the pay is very poor. The statement above is not meant as a generalisation of the overall reality in the business.

.
Some of "them" I know can't get on and stay on Public Assistance, and need some manner of income to live.
For any number of reasons, sloth and stupidity being foremost, if/when they qualify for PA, they soon fail to stay qualified, and lose it.
Then have to re-apply. In the mean time, they have to eat.

Instead of blathering on about whether it is 'common' for a few or many or most prostitutes to be forced to have sex with 100 men in one day (it is NOT), I would hope that all you people who seem to have so much time on your hands that you can stay up all night and blog about the lives of people you don't even know- would get involved in helping sex workers change the laws so that when we are victims of either an abusive pimp (which most of us do not have) or a violent client or extortionist cop, we have some recourse to fight back.

We are a pedantic and argumentative group here. Waving a claim around will get many people to jump on it to verify its factual status. And what can we do to change the laws? There are many laws that would likely be changed if the population of this forum had its way.

So why should I advocate for this legal change instead of gay marriage or getting dangerous quackery off of our pharmacy shelves?

Could it be possible that the "they" in the second sentence is speaking of the brothel as a whole, not just one worker?

It's actually not out of line with conversations I have had with sex workers who used to work in brothels on American "Indian" reservations. The guys would literally line up to wait their turn and the workers were getting $15 of the $25 the house took. For where they were and the time (1970s) it was good money. They would do many dozens of guys in a shift. And they could quit any time they liked; none were slaves.

__________________For what doth it profit a man, to fix one bug, but crash the system?

Some bloggers here think that my comments about bad cops are merely ranting, but unfortunately everything I stated is based on real cases not hypothetical hyperbole. As I stated, I cannot yet post links, but if you go to the website policeprostitutionandpolitics.com and click the links for the police abuse of prostitutes, abuse of their (cop) family members and the sexual exploitation of children. The lists are of actual cases, not speculation.

And if you go to this page, you will find plenty of academic studies and other material which counter the claims of the radical feminists: policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/pdfs_all/

As a former civilian employee of the LAPD (30 years ago), this is an area which greatly concerns me which is why I have spent the past 30 years gathering the horrendous stories of police abuse. The corruption drove me to leave the department, and I became a prostitute as a social statement about societal hypocrisy and apathy. I went to prison for daring to expose the corruption that was occurring back in the 1970s - 1980s. You can see the interview with Ed Bradley by going to policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/videos

The point I always make is that while there are far too many cops who do these things, the bad cops do not represent the entire law enforcement community, not even most of that community. And the victims of sex trafficking do not represent the entire sex worker community.

When compared to other similar situations in which abuse, psychological harm and coercion occur, it is much clearer that sex work is not the only source of harm to 'women and children.' But we do not make criminals of the victims in any other area but prostitution.

According to many sources (again find the links on the website above) the major destination for victims of human trafficking is not into sex slavery but into domestic servitude. Children as young as 5 are sold to families to be their servant. However, unless the child is also used for sex, when the child is rescued, there is no great outcry about the harm of domestic servitude. Even after the (alleged) rape of a maid at a high end hotel by a French politician, there is no crusade to abolish what appears to be a very dangerous occupation.

Given that there is every bit as much 'evidence' that abortion is as psychologically harmful as sex work is said to be, it seems to me that feminists would get on board with the religious conservatives to make abortion a crime once again. Same for homosexuality. And no, I am not being serious. It is MY body and it is MY choice regardless of what I choose to do with it... but why aren't feminists consistent? If religious researchers have found that abortion and homosexuality are harmful, why do the feminists ignore the studies which are so obviously ideologically biased while embracing their own equally ideologically biased research?

Instead of blathering on about whether it is 'common' for a few or many or most prostitutes to be forced to have sex with 100 men in one day (it is NOT), I would hope that all you people who seem to have so much time on your hands that you can stay up all night and blog about the lives of people you don't even know- would get involved in helping sex workers change the laws so that when we are victims of either an abusive pimp (which most of us do not have) or a violent client or extortionist cop, we have some recourse to fight back.

But of course, why listen to someone who knows first hand about this issue when you can listen to people who just read about it and speculate on the reality of our lives?

There are no bloggers here, and many of the people who are trying to combat the forced trafficking of women and children are not the puritanical misfits that you portray.
The modern slavery issue, and legalizing prostitution are areas that overlap, they are not one and the same.
In addition, the claim that someone said it is common to have 100 clients has been thoroughly debunked.

Would it be possible to enter into productive discourse about your point without all the conflation?

It's actually not out of line with conversations I have had with sex workers who used to work in brothels on American "Indian" reservations. The guys would literally line up to wait their turn and the workers were getting $15 of the $25 the house took. For where they were and the time (1970s) it was good money. They would do many dozens of guys in a shift. And they could quit any time they liked; none were slaves.

There were stories about prostitutes in Hawaii making $300 a day, after the military capped their rate at $3. The phrase was three dollars for three minutes.

There are two very distinctly different topics being discussed here - Prostitution as choice and sexual slavery. (And really who gives a rats how many times a day the slave is raped. Once, in one day is too horrible. It happens and it's ongoing.)

normajeana, welcome to the forum.

I'm one of the more vocal feminist on the forum. That doesn't mean that I speak for all feminists or that my opinion is universal, far from it. As you already know, there is some disagreement within feminism in regards to sex work. Personally, I believe that any safe, sane, consensual activities between adults is their business. The problem with sex work in the US is that politics and prudes have removed "safe" from that equation.

The legal brothels in Nevada are (to my incomplete knowledge) decent working models* but even if legal brothels were to become more widespread, that wouldn't help the independent sex workers. Many wouldn't want to work at a brothel and some would be ineligible. Underage runaways would still have no option but street work. In order to protect the independent workers, prostitution must be decriminalized. That's going to be a hell of a fight. The US isn't exactly pro-women right now, pro-sex-worker seems like a distant dream.

* I would prefer that brothels were run as collectives by the sex workers. A brothel owner takes a large portion of the workers earning. The owner provides security and other amenities but the owner's profit is a little too close to pimping.

* I would prefer that brothels were run as collectives by the sex workers. A brothel owner takes a large portion of the workers earning. The owner provides security and other amenities but the owner's profit is a little too close to pimping.

I don't know about collectives, I think specialized hotels that a set fee for time and usage of a particular space with in it. Though there are regulatory advantages to a more brothel style arrangement. It is just easier to enforce regulations on a larger business than independent contractors.

I don't know about collectives, I think specialized hotels that a set fee for time and usage of a particular space with in it. Though there are regulatory advantages to a more brothel style arrangement. It is just easier to enforce regulations on a larger business than independent contractors.

As I said, I would prefer. But at this point it's moot. Until we change the laws which would allow for legal brothels across the US, nit-picking over the details is getting ahead of myself.